Non-Overt Arguments: Anaphoricity and Genericity

Abstract

This article investigates non-overt arguments in English by examining six constructions that have traditionally been analyzed under the syntactic realization (SR) criterion. I argue that SR alone cannot adequately capture the interpretive distinctions among non-overt arguments and propose a diagnostic framework based on ‘anaphoricity’ and ‘genericity’. By applying this framework, I show that non-overt arguments can be systematically classified into null arguments (NAs), which are anaphorically linked to specific discourse antecedents and implicit arguments (IAs), which are semantically required but lack recoverable referents. This analysis reveals that constructions involving passives, deverbal nouns, null objects, adjectives, deontic modals, and agentive suffixes display systematic contrasts that SR fails to capture, while the anaphoricity and genericity diagnostic reliably distinguishes NAs from IAs. These findings demonstrate that a semantic-pragmatic perspective provides a more principled account of argument structure, reconciling conflicting claims in the literature and offering a generalizable approach for identifying implicit argumenthood in English.